MOC 10.26 -- The Dam

Little Butterfly Wings, Butterfly Basics, Travel Edition
Little Butterfly Wings, Cozy October (alpha)
Just Jaimee, June 2019 Storyteller Collection (blue paper)

Journaling (491 words)
Growing up in Valhalla, New York, there was a landmark in town that formed the backdrop to our day-to-day lives, the Kensico Dam. Of course, no one in town ever called it “The Kensico Dam”; we just called it “the dam”. We didn’t think too much about its history but it was a major municipal building project back in the early 1900s to create the Kensico reservoir which still provides the majority of the drinking water for New York City even to this day. As kids, we shared spooky stories about the small town of Kensico that was flooded under 30 billion gallons of water when the reservoir was created. Rumor had it that if the sun was angled just right, you could still see the steeple of the Kensico town church. We never did.
For my sister and I, we traveled over the dam every weekend when we would leave mom’s house and go to dad’s house for the weekend. In some ways, the dam was the gateway to a different world. We would leave our small house in Valhalla where we lived modest suburban lives going to public school and church and where our vacations mostly involved camping. Then, we would drive over the dam, through the gorgeous winding hills with views of the pristine Kensico Reservoir to the land of country clubs, private schools and large estates. We never quite fit in to that world and Dad worked all the time to afford it but we loved his big house and eating out at fancy restaurants and the occasional trip into Manhattan or more exotic places. When the weekend was over, we’d travel back over the Dam to our day-to-day lives in Valhalla.
The Dam holds other memories including square dancing in the plaza below the Dam which was surprisingly fun for something we teenagers thought was SO uncool. There was the 4th of July celebration with a fair and fireworks. Dianne was hired to be a clown one year and to hand out balloons. The time my little VW Rabbit spun 360 degrees on ice right on the road in front of the dam (scary but no harm done). The time Dianne drove over a curb on that same road and pulled the muffler off Dad’s car. And, one of my worst memories: when our friend, Tony, plagued by depression for some time, jumped from the dam one sunny day, shocking us all and leaving us with so many regrets and questions in the wake of his death.
We don’t live in Valhalla anymore and after 9/11, you can’t drive over the dam anymore. You now have to take the scenic route around below the dam but they still hold festivals and events in the plaza and it still stands as the backdrop of the lives for the people who live there, enjoying its stately beauty and probably still taking it for granted most of the time.